A stable numerical method for Volterra integral equations with discontinuous kernel

Numerical methods for Volterra integral equations with discontinuous kernel need to be tuned to their peculiar form. Here we propose a version of the trapezoidal direct quadrature method adapted to such a type of equations. In order to delineate its stability properties, we first investigate about the behavior of the solution of a suitable (basic) test equation and then we find out under which hypotheses the trapezoidal direct quadrature method provides numerical solutions which inherit the properties of the continuous problem. © 2007 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved